I recall a snippet from my childhood when, driving past a sweaty squaddie running up the hill from Baħar iċ-Ċagħaq, back in the days before Dom Mintoff’s intrepid battle to rid us of the colonisers, my old man jibed: “take a bus, Joe”, fondly, let it be said.

I was tempted to use the same crack in the general direction of Minister Joe Mizzi for my title this week but it wouldn’t have been particularly apt and no-one would have got it, anyway.

Mizzi is responsible, among other things, for public transport, the road network insofar as it relates to traffic management and the hunt for oil. In all three, if you were to believe him, which is always a dicey shot when dealing with politicians, he has been a resounding success. In all three, in reality, the very best you can say is that the jury is still out, at least on public transport. In the other two areas, the verdict is in: he is guilty of failing, spectacularly.

There’s no gold in them thar hills – or, more precisely, there’s no oil out at sea, for all the promises and hints that Mizzi made before the general election.

I’d like nothing more than to be forced to eat my words in a few months time but there’s about as much chance of that happening as the new power station coming on stream within the time frame that was promised by the Prime Minister when he was still the wannabe prime minister.

Or about as much chance as Joseph Muscat keeping his word and resigning because what he promised would happen won’t be happening.

Joe Mizzi’s solution to the traffic jam perception is as ineffectual as his search for oil has been effective

His trusty sidekick, Konrad ‘Shame on You’ Mizzi is valiantly trying to spin Muscat’s story into touch, both by making fatuous remarks about the important thing being the reduction in tariffs and by making up rhyming couplets about Georgie Georgie, demonstrating beyond reasonable doubt that he thinks that we’re all still in the schoolyard.

All that’s left is for him to burst into tears if someone mentions his wife’s fantastic salary again, as he almost did yet again, though he bravely covered it up with some sneering bravado, during his rambling press conference on what George Pullicino did or didn’t do.

You can see it on iNews, the General Workers’ Union government fan page.

The other Mizzi, then, has failed at what he had tried to give the impression was easy-peasy, finding oil.

He’s also failed, very spectacularly, at dispelling the impression that the horrendous traffic from which we’re all suffering is nothing more than a perception. When I say ‘we’, I mean of course ‘you’, the poor beggars who still think that a car is an acceptable mode of transport, which allows you to make up for the disappointments of your mundane life by being cocooned in faux leather comfort with pleasant sounds wafting out of the surround sound.

I, on the other hand, choose to use a bike (motor, not push, what do you think I am, a tree-hugger?) and I get from A to B, via C and Z if necessary, in a time approximating that which God intended, managing thereby to make time to accommodate the strange desires of those who crave my company, assuming some miscreant encased in cheap steel on four wheels doesn’t kill me on the way.

Among the biking community, it’s considered a good start to the day if, on the way into the office, fewer than three morons in cars try to mow you down. So help me, if one more dumb bint chatting on her mobile or one other bewildered septuagenarian tries to send me to meet my Maker while I’m breezing past them, I’ll use my crash helmet to drum some sense into what passes for their brain.

Mizzi’s failure to manage traffic properly, though, is even starting to have its effect on those of us sensible enough to opt for two wheels.

I’ve had to go through the Regional Road, heading north and then swinging into Paceville, twice in so many days and on both occasions I had to come to a complete stop because assorted coaches, trucks and other behemoths have entered into a Sicilian gridlock.

It’s been the same on many other through – wrong-word, blocked – routes and no amount of Transport Malta functionaries telling us that we’re wrong, the mess of traffic is only a perception, is going to change things. I’ve noticed, nay, perceived, that various officious looking coves in uniform are loitering at strategic junctions, to no apparent purpose, other than an occasional desultory wave in the general direction of the traffic, presumably to urge them on.

This, one must assume, is Mizzi’s solution to the traffic jam perception. They’re as ineffectual as his search for oil has been effective.

Mizzi is responsible, let’s not forget, to wrestle, coerce, bash, strong-arm, persuade, or whatever it is one needs to do, the public transport system into something resembling decency.

You will recall, of course, that before the elections, Labour lil’elves and their accomplices in the media had turned the word ‘Arriva’ into a euphemism for Satan and all his works. The slightest snarl-up, a bus overheating or arriving 15 seconds later than its allotted time, and the presses were stopped, shock-horror specialists were lined up and Austin Gatt was manhandled into the stocks and peppered with rotten eggs and over-ripe tomatoes, along with his henchmen.

Miraculously, the furore died down when the means achieved the end so desired and Labour was voted in, allowing Muscat to scamper up the steps to Castille, taking possession of his very own Camelot.

We all know that just because Labour are in government, with Muscat and his queen on the throne, beaming regally down on us, the plebs, this doesn’t mean that all is fine and dandy on the buses.

With Mizzi in charge of putting a decent system in place (let’s take the lil’elves at their word and assume that the system wasn’t decent, rather than it needing some tweaking) I’m not about to start holding my breath waiting for it to happen. This is a man, it needs to be said, who has about as many technical qualifications to run public transport as I do, that is to say the sum total of zilch added to none at all.

But this manifest lack of technical ability notwithstanding, he still felt that he had to feed us the story that he trotted off on a jolly to Spain to have a chat or two with the anointed bidders “to ensure that technically they were up to the mark”.

Yes, minister, that’s why you went, of course you did: no doubt, you went ferreting about under the whole fleet, to make sure that there weren’t any oil-leaks. Ah, maybe that’s what you meant when you said we’d be finding oil, after all.

Or did you burn the midnight oil in your hotel room, paid for out of my taxes, drilling down into the notes to the P&L and the balance sheet, ensuring that the Spaniards’ pockets were deep enough to benefit from the subsidy you’ve been hinting you’re going to have to give them to persuade them to ride to your rescue?

What a way to run a railroad.

imbocca@gmail.com

www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20